Millions of people turned away from Labour during its 13 years in power. There’s only one way it can win them back

A builder reads the Sun on 30th September 2009, when the newspaper dropped its support for the Labour party after 12 years

A single, stark statistic ricocheted round Labour’s annual conference this autumn: that during the party’s 13 years in power it lost five million votes. In the Blair landslide of 1997, 13.5m people voted Labour. By 2010 the figure was down to 8.6m.

The challenge now is to win the defectors back. How can this be done? Labour-supporting blogs offer different ideas. A new pressure group, “Five Million Votes,” was set up in July. A growing number of activists are joining the debate. All of them face the same problem. They have no firm evidence on which to base their plans. Has Labour lost votes by diluting its progressive ideals? Or has it not done enough to secure the centre ground from David Cameron’s assaults? Has the party suffered from too much New Labour thinking—or too little? Has the time come to bury the politics of triangulation or to revive it? The argument rages, but the data has been absent.

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Comments

RB2

October 19, 2012 at 14:05

One of the things that this fascinating analysis says to me is that political parties are playing a socially disintegrative, rather than integrative, role.Both Labour and Conservatives parties have comfort zones outside the mainstream of public opinion, and field strategies that attempt to create disagreement and dissent where actually most non-politically affiliated people generally agree. (I have no idea what the Liberal Democrats think)Notwithstanding the nostalgia that various political journalists etc espouse for big ideological clashes, this substantive agreement should be the basis for an elevation of public debate to consider seriously the best way to do the things that we almost all agree are good. But instead politics continuously tries to create artificial division by misrepresenting the other party’s view.For example – no one I know who votes Conservative wants to ‘destroy’ the NHS, as the Labour party assert. Conversely, it is clearly not true that Labour voters have a vision of a country where everyone is on benefits.

David Gillon

October 20, 2012 at 17:56

I think the best phrase I can find to categorise the path the article advocates for Labour is 'moral cowardice'. Essentially this is Labour abdicating political leadership in order to define policy solely by pursuit of the Daily Mail's Little Englander demographic. And if that makes me sound hostile to that demographic, it's because as a disabled person they are hostile to me, defining me as a scrounger and fraud, and indeed attacking not just myself but 1000s upon 1000s of disabled people in the street. This redefinition of disability, and in particular of disabled benefit recipients as a social evil shamefully started with Labour and with James Purnell's seduction by the US insurer UNUM.What's the point of Labour trying to be Toryism-Lite, when people can vote as easily for the real thing? What's the point of Labour espousing anti-benefit claimant rhetoric, anti-immigrant rhetoric, anti-disability rhetoric, when it betrays everything the party is supposed to stand for? Does Labour stand for social justice, or just for being in power?The article accepts the status quo as unchangeable, and presumes that Labour must follow the crowd, but surely leadership demands that the party should actually lead? If the Daily Mail demographic demonises people like me as scroungers, then joining in the demonisation is not something I envisage many people joined the party to support. Selling-out your morals for votes is surely something we would define as a Tory characteristic, not a Labour core value? Doesn't everything Labour stands for demand that, rather than trailing along on hatred's apronstrings, they exercise the leadership to drag people clear of Little Englander xenophobia and hate, that they set out an example of equality for all as the core of everything the party stands for, ultimately creating a society in which people like me are no longer scared to walk the streets?

Harrison

Paul Trembath

October 21, 2012 at 11:03

@RB2: Possibly Conservative voters don't *want* to destroy the NHS - it wasn't in the Tory manifesto - but that is where the Health & Social Care Act is rapidly leading us, to the benefit of many Tory donors and business connections.Probably they don't *want* the economy sacrificed for neoliberal principle, but there you are. Quite likely the voters don't *want* the poor to be vilified as scroungers, the sick made homeless, and the rich exempted from tax - but that is *actually happening*.Can I suggest that their votes may be misplaced? Labour were bad enough, but not entirely useless and sometimes did some good. The current shower would be even more wicked if they were remotely competent, and utterly shameless with it.

Rainborough

October 21, 2012 at 13:27

In the Peter Kellner political universe, all that matters is what the polls reveal. No matter that what the polls reveal is very largely a function of the domination of political discourse by the ruling class in the form of its servile corporate media and the barely distinguishable political parties which that class has groomed to represent its interests. The main reason why Kellner's polls "reveal" that the redistribution of wealth is not wildly popular is that immense effort is constantly expended by the wealthy and their ideologues (among them Peter Kellner) to convince people that radical change is neither feasible nor desirable, to foster resentments between different sections of the population so as to divide ordinary citizens while others rule, and to distract their attention from the scandal of how people are robbed blind by self-serving and utterly ruthless financial and ruling cliques.What Kellner's metaphor of the "mainland" and the "small, outer islands of Britain’s political archipelago" seeks to conceal is that this ideological geography is by no means a geography of natural features. It one which has been deliberately created, and is reinforced every time the media deliberately marginalise, traduce or ignore inconvenient radical voices which refuse to play the game of pretending that only capitalist solutions are feasible, that only the political elite should exercise power, and that the best which working people can hope for is some slight amelioration in the burdens which are laid upon them, in the degree of exploitation of their labour, and in the extent of the demonisation of those unfortunates who lack jobs or the physical fitness to perform one, but provide convenient scapegoats for the failures of an utterly dysfunctional politico-economic system.

Chris Beckett

October 21, 2012 at 17:39

"Class-specific institutions, such as working-men’s clubs, industrial trade union branches and council homes are far rarer than they were."Much less VISIBLE than they were perhaps. But you can sit all day in the cafe of Cambridge University Library all day (as I sometimes do to write) and never once hear a hint of any British regional accent.The recent row about Andrew Mitchell reveals that under the surface old class divisions - old assumptions about entitlement and worth - are still very much alive.

Richard Sage

October 21, 2012 at 18:12

I was a lifelong (61 years) Labour voter that did not vote Labour in 2010, and I can tell you the reason is exactly articles like this one. The Labour party needs to believe in something and stick to it. If it is a party that will say anything and sway anyway to get votes then it is not a party of principle. Lack of principle is why most people have been turning against politics and politicians.

Eoin Clarke

October 21, 2012 at 18:39

The piece makes several important mistakes.Social Grade Classification that includes C1 posts as "middle class" includes millions of jobs that pay minimum wage. The squeeze on living standards renders the assumption that the middle classes are expanding at anything like the rates suggested as devoid of reality. Consumer debt is up 500% at will hit more than £2.2 trillion by 2015. 2% of the Electorate will go bankrupt this term.In addition, Labour lost most votes among the "private rented sector". Whilst it is correct to say these people are not social renters, it would be naive to ignore the serious squeeze on their income caused by lack of affordable housing. Annual rents average £8,700+ (and they are even higher in the south). The working poor are absent from this analysis.In terms of policies that are favoured by the majority of the electorate - yes EU & Immigration feature strongly, and yes Labour should reexamine their stance but let us not forget that the most pro-EU & pro-Immigration leader Labour ever had was Tony Blair. Thus, rather that reduce his failings to triangulation and Iraq it is important to recognise that his lack of understanding and clear mistakes in 2005 a la EU expansion are crucial in all of this.Economically, there is less evidence the public embrace right wing thinking. The majority of the electorate support 50p rate, bankers' taxes, mansion tax (£2m) etc. etc. As for predistribution, it offers the key to loosening the squeeze on living standards by curbing rail, energy and other utility price rises. Blair opposed all of this, and this further renders him irrelevant to today. In short, selecting social/political policies that the public have moved right on as justification for resurrecting Blair's right leaning thinking on economics is daft and devoid of polling support.

Richard

October 22, 2012 at 10:38

"Among defectors, on the other hand, 36 per cent describe themselves as left and 48 per cent as centre or right."Why do you not give the exact percentage for 'centre' and 'right' separately? Is it because it would spoil your argument?

Richard

October 22, 2012 at 10:46

"Among defectors the figure tumbles to 14 per cent. One defector in three chooses the Conservatives or Lib Dems"Again, you fail to break down the percentage of defectors for Conservatives and Lib Dems separately, providing stronger confirmation that you're constructing an argument to fit a preconceived conclusion.

Richard

October 22, 2012 at 10:59

"To reassemble an election-winning coalition of voters next time, these are the people Labour must win back. This means rejecting the language of ideology, class and social division, and reviving the appeal of national purpose."This just pure opinion alone, not supported by any of the 'data' provided.

RB2

October 22, 2012 at 12:13

@Carl G & Paul TremblathClearly you guys are doing a pretty good job of providing personal counter examples to my point that the electorate are more moderate than political parties, with your starkly Manichean views of current government policy. But I still think that it’s the case; I don’t believe that the view that, for example, the government’s NHS policy is driven by wickedness or corruption is either correct or a representative view.For the record, I do not think that the current round of NHS reform is a good idea. But this is at base a managerial question about means – how public money gets translated into medical care most efficiently and effectively. I don’t think that there will be riots about the extent to which the private sector plays a part in this process, while the NHS remains funded by general taxation and free at the point of use.Believing that those with opposing views are actively malign makes proper political dialogue all but impossible, meaning that there is a lack of rational deliberative process in our democracy. The resulting slanging match reinforces perceptions that politics is the preserve of unpleasant weirdos, rather than an activity vital to our individual and collective good in which we should all be involved.

Richard

October 22, 2012 at 13:36

"Half a century ago, two-thirds of voters were working class. In 1997, they still outnumbered middle-class electors by two million. Today, Britain has six million more middle-class than working-class electors."No definition of terms provided nor a single data source, just lazy assertions which we're supposed to take as evidence.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski

October 22, 2012 at 16:39

This is a really interesting analysis, with some fairly predictable comments coming in response. Politics is not a theoretical game in which purity of purpose is recognised and rewarded, but a process of adaptation and compromise that recognises the uncertainty and hesitation with which most people view their political choices. Political parties need to recognise the landscape before they can change it.A Labour Party heading for a 'principled' stand on the left of the spectrum will contain many self-satisfied people, whose purity of purpose will never be rocked by the demands of government. That's the reality the party faces.

ChristoClifford

October 22, 2012 at 16:43

This is morally vacuous. It's trying to be all things to all men & women.
YouGov polling suspect to begin with in asking right of centre questions.
You don't do 'tough on immigration' because lots of ex Labour voters hate immigrants, you tackle the issues that make people feel that way.
Working Class, Middle Class? Define what that means today. We have millions unable to save and buy a home or hanging into heavily mortgaged homes by their fingertips. Plenty of ' I'm alright Jack' folk in steady jobs doing ok blindly unaware that the Government is full of people who look down on them.
I voted Labour until it left me behind. Nothing in D Miliband's New Labour/Blue nonsense. Too many have seen through the lies. What are they going to do to tackle the organised crime form of Capitalism we have descended into?

Martin Pierce

October 22, 2012 at 16:46

There doesn't seem to be any analysis of what must surely be a significant proportion of the 2010 Labour 8.6m voters - those that didn't vote in 1997, mostly by virtue of being too young (any voter in 2010 under 31 would not have been able to vote in 1997). How many of these were there within the 8.6m? If the number is significant, wouldn't that increase the number of defectors still further? And what was it about Labour that made them vote for the party that wasn't somehow rooted in being part of the 'it is a new dawn, is it not?' moment early morning on May 2nd 1997?

RB2

October 22, 2012 at 16:49

Of course there are still some real ideological distinctions, although I don’t think NHS policy is necessarily one of them as most people agree about what they want the NHS to achieve.But I’m not convinced by the conventional wisdom that the clash of ideology is what is needed to get people interested in politics. I think discussing things that matter, and reaching conclusions that lead to action that makes a difference in people’s lives will get the population more engaged than headbanging about values.Re New Labour – yes I accept that. I think that the post ideological ‘just make it work’ bit was probably the most successful bit of the NL project, and I don’t think there was anything wrong with it. NL was of course hugely politically successful, and had there been a) no Iraq war and b) no simmering feud at the heart of government then it might have been a great deal more successful.

Mark Thompson

Mick

October 23, 2012 at 09:06

So don't mention 'social contest' or the 'pitching of our people against their people' - even while the Tories and their friends in the press are doing this day in day out? How are you supposed to highlight and challenge that without acknowledging it?

John

October 23, 2012 at 16:37

If Labour get back into power it will simply be - faute de mieux- because people have had enough of the pain of austerity rather than anything to do with the party offering a coherent alternative. Miliband has in any case already admitted his redundance and has little to offer apart from personal ambition and mood music. And with Balls at his shoulder the electorate should be forcibly reminded of the reckless expenditure under Brown that helped to get us into this mess. There is in effect no plausible alternative within the available political structure that offers anything worth voting for.

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